


i'll give you the moon

by arealsword



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Absurdist Romcom, Established Relationship, Gift Giving, M/M, Playing Fast And Loose With Physics, Scientific Nonsense, Suspension Of Disbelief, hey look at how hard they can be in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27857973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arealsword/pseuds/arealsword
Summary: Five times Virgil presented Logan with a deeply improbable anniversary gift, and one time Logan returned the favor.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Logic | Logan Sanders
Comments: 27
Kudos: 70
Collections: TSS Fanworks Collective, TSS Fanworks Collective Discord Secret Santa





	i'll give you the moon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EasyMetaKnight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EasyMetaKnight/gifts).



> For EasyMetaKnight in the Joan Collective December Gift Exchange – for their prompts ‘Analogical, Fluff/Romance, Gift Giving and Stargazing’. Happy holidays!!
> 
> Title from that one quote from 'It's A Wonderful Life'.

On Wednesday, Virgil gives Logan the sun.

“I will admit,” says Logan, the brightness of two octillion tonnes of hydrogen, helium, and other assorted gases glinting off his glasses, “when you said you had a present for me, I wasn’t expecting this. I was thinking slightly more akin to chocolate or flowers.”

Virgil shifts, obviously uncomfortable. “Look, it’s not supposed to be a big deal or anything. I just thought you might like it. Seeing as it’s our, uh – you know. Anniversary.”

“Virgil,” says Logan, with utmost seriousness, “please understand me when I say this: I am positively  _ brimming  _ with excitement. This is the most thoughtful thing anybody’s done for me since Roman broke into the school library in first grade to steal the book on quantum mechanics that the teacher said was ‘entirely too advanced for a young man my age’. I doubt you could find a gift better suited to my current interests, and the effort you must have gone to in order to obtain this is mind-bogglingly tremendous.”

Virgil shrugs, although he does look rather pleased. “Well – yeah. I overthought this for, like, a full month, I  _ better  _ have gotten this one right.”

“I just have the most terrible feeling that the world as we know it might not benefit from being thrown into eternal darkness,” Logan says reluctantly, finally looking away. He blinks, clearing patches of blackness from his vision. “I’ve written at least two detailed essays on the consequences of such an event, and although usually I would relish the chance of bringing such a hypothetical out of the... well, hypothetical, so I can check my facts, I  _ would  _ prefer such an event to not occur at the expense of the entire human race.”

Virgil gnaws at a fingernail, which is a terrible habit that he claims he’s going to break himself of eventually. Logan has seen no evidence supporting this. “I mean, I  _ guess.  _ Have you seen the state of the human race lately, though? Maybe we deserve it. That’s, like, the secondary gift. You get the sun, and also all this bullshit that we’ve been going through recently comes to a complete end. Doesn’t that sound great?”

Logan folds his hands and sits back. “Maybe to you, granted. But we’ve established I don’t share your pessimistic outlook on the human race’s capacity for evil.”

Virgil rolls his eyes, but it’s a markedly fond sort of eye-roll, and he leans in to press a kiss to Logan’s jaw. “Yeah, yeah, I get it, you’re an optimist.”

“A realist,” he corrects. “Optimism can be just as damaging as pessimism, under the right circumstances. And as a realist...” He squints at his gift. “I am also forced to admit that, although it is a rather stunning living room piece... I have the niggling fear that it might end up burning all of our furniture, and possibly the entire apartment down.”

Virgil stretches a leg out and stomps hastily on the corner of their well-worn shag carpet, which has already begun to smoke ominously. “...Shit, you’re right. Okay, pass me the oven mitts – I’ll put it back right now.”

“I’ll hold the door open for you,” Logan says obligingly, and proceeds to do just that.

*

On Thursday, Virgil steals the moon.

“Very  _ Despicable Me, _ ” Logan notes, leaning back so he doesn’t bump his head on the curvature of it.

“Goddamnit, I  _ knew  _ this reminded me of something.” Virgil scratches the side of his head, looking grumpy and vaguely vexed. “I swear, I can’t do a  _ single  _ grand romantic gesture without someone having done it already. People need to – they just need to stop writing about cool things. They need to give me time to invent cool things myself. Writers are stupid, they keep stealing all the good ideas – why are you looking at me like that?”

Logan is grinning. He can’t stop himself. He’s pretty sure that he’s just about  _ radiating  _ fondness, and he hopes it’s entirely apparent. “If it helps, I do believe that the lunar theft that is a core plot point of the popular animated film  _ Despicable Me _ (starring Steve Carell and Pierre Coffin) is motivated by jealousy and petty one-up-manship rather than romance. And furthermore, I can safely say that I consider this to be a  _ deeply  _ romantic gesture. And – what’s the phrase? – if the majority of the room was not occupied by the Earth’s only natural satellite, I would ‘ravage you quite thoroughly here and now on our living room carpet’.”

And now Virgil is no longer looking grumpy and vexed, but he does look slightly flushed and flustered, in that particular way he gets when he wasn’t expecting a positive response. “I don’t think anyone’s ever said that. That’s super specific.”

“Nonetheless.” Logan looks up, brushes his hand gently across the moon’s craggy surface. “I do find myself quite overcome. It’s enough to make me wonder if the ancient belief that the moon could cause extravagant fits of thriving madness has any merit.”

“Uh, that’s probably confirmation bias or – whatever it was that you mentioned that one time.” Virgil frown. “Wait, but, that was actually a thing?”

“Mm, it’s where we derive the word ‘lunatic’ from. Lunar madness, moon madness. There’s actually been some evidence to suggest that there’s further – ”

“Okay, you know I  _ love  _ hearing you talk about really specific word etymology, so please don’t take it the wrong way when I say ‘shut up and come kiss me in the light of the moon, which just so happens to be a lot closer by than it usually is’.”

“Now  _ there’s  _ a deeply romantic gesture.” Logan lets himself be tugged forward; lets Virgil brush kisses up the side of his neck and to the corners of his mouth. “Although –  _ mm! _ ” A brief pause as they graduate into full-on ‘making out’, which lasts for nearly half a minute before Logan manages to withdraw and catch his breath and say, “Although, there isn’t much  _ light. _ ”

Indeed, the gargantuan size of their latest decorative living room piece pretty much blocks out any light streaming in from the windows outside.

“I thought it’d be glowing, yeah,” Virgil admits, a bit despondently. “That was kind of the reason I went for it? Like, the  _ moon’s  _ not made of burning flame and helium and... and whatever the sun’s made out of. All of the glow, none of the... burning our house down. But it’s not. It’s more like... a big, craggy rock.”

“Common misconception – the moon reflects the sun’s light, causing it to appear as if it’s glowing.” Logan leans back, letting Virgil take his weight, and raps his hand against the side of the moon, demonstrative. “The windows are blocked. No sun, hence, no glow.”

“Ah. Right. Yeah, I think I remember that from third-grade science class. Probably should have googled that before I went to all the trouble of stealing it.” Virgil stares at the moon for a moment. “I... also seem to remember something about it controlling the tides...?”

“Also correct.”

“So I should probably put the moon back.”

“Most likely, although I’ll hate to see it go.”

Virgil pauses. “Just so you know, I’m not actually trying to cause the complete collapse of human civilisation with my anniversary gifts to you. It just... sort of keeps happening, you know?”

“I understand completely,” agrees Logan, who has previously made several catastrophic gift-related mistakes in letting Patton into their kitchen for cooking lessons, trusting Janus with the names and addresses of his childhood crushes, and presenting Remus with the presidential nuclear launch codes. Something that’s been at the back of his mind for a while now properly occurs to him, and he frowns. “Virgil?”

“Yeah?”

“You...  _ do  _ know that I love you without you having to present me with mindbendingly large celestial bodies and/or astronomical objects, yes?”

“Yeah,” says Virgil, pulling out a pickaxe so he can break open the wall again to get the moon back out. “Yeah, I know that, why do you ask?”

“Well, good,” says Logan, vaguely satisfied even though something still doesn’t feel quite right. “Just as long as you know.”

*

On Friday, their apartment smells quite a lot like brine and krill.

“Is that an  _ entire _ Arctic blue whale in our kitchen?” Logan asks.

“Um, yeah.”

“Dare I ask what it’s doing?”

“Suffocating,” says Virgil, “I think.”

Logan looks at the whale, which is indeed making rather horrifying noises, then at Virgil, and then back at the whale again.

“I also ordered a tank for it,” Virgil says, a bit sheepishly. “But I guess it didn’t end up coming in time? Sorry. I know you hate animal cruelty.” He checks his phone. “It says here that they can survive up to one and a half hours out of water, so I guess it’s time for a reverse whale heist...?”

“I’m torn between delight that you remembered my favorite species of aquatic megafauna, amazement that you somehow managed to sneak it in here while I was brushing my teeth, and quite a lot of worry that you might not get it back in the water in time.”

Virgil grimaces. “...Can I borrow your pickup truck? I’m starting to realize I’m  _ really  _ bad at this whole anniversary gift thing, and... I do  _ not  _ want to kill this.”

Logan reaches for his keys. “I think you’re doing exceptionally,” he says. “I’ll drive.”

*

On Saturday, Virgil discovers a previously-hypothetical element of quantum gravity theory, which is (Logan thinks) very neat and sexy of him.

“You’re not serious _ , _ ” Logan breathes. “You – _ no.  _ I refuse to believe that – is this a  _ graviton? _ ”

“I’m very good at finding things,” Virgil says, apparently torn between smugness and embarrassment. “It’s, uh, a side effect of always doubting my choices and decisions to a life-wrecking degree. I end up checking things, like, half a million times before I’m satisfied.”

“I know  _ that,  _ but you – you found  _ the hypothetical elementary particle that mediates the force of gravity, Virgil! _ ”

“Yeah, I’m a very anxious person, so it was bound to happen eventually – ” Virgil is cut off by the fact that Logan has just launched himself bodily across the room to sweep Virgil into what essentially amounts to the most theatrical dip-kiss that they’ve ever engaged in. His eyes go wide and his hands flail and he reciprocates eagerly for a moment before drawing back and gasping, “ _ Whoa,  _ all right, it’s just a theoretical particle, I stumbled across it on the way home – no biggie – ”

“ _ Yes  _ biggie,” says Logan firmly. “Virgil – ”

“Fuck,” says Virgil abruptly, scrabbling in the air wildly. “I think I dropped it – nope, there it is.”

“Elementary particles  _ do  _ tend to be hard to keep your eye on, even after you observe them for the first time,” Logan says.

Virgil hooks a hand around Logan’s neck to keep himself steady, and carefully studies the graviton that’s still cupped carefully in one hand. Its existence is somewhat indeterminate, even though they’ve both properly observed it at this point. Quantum theory is so tricky like that. “I mean, I’m glad you like it. I’m  _ really  _ glad you like it. I just don’t...  _ really  _ understand why you’re more enthusiastic about this than, uh – the blue whale? Putting aside the whole ‘accidentally suffocating a sentient creature’ thing, but...”

“There are approximately three thousand arctic whales still remaining within Earth’s oceans,” Logan tells him, “which is not an  _ amazingly  _ great number, and also happens to be something that we as a species need to take a collective immediate environmental interest in, lest we lose them forever. But more importantly, we are aware of their existence. You have discovered something entirely  _ new _ for me, Virgil, and it...” He takes a step back and swivels on his heel, flinging out his arms in wild joy that he can’t seem to restrain. “...it figuratively blows my mind! I love you!” he adds, because that’s an empirical fact that he hasn’t yet made a note of yet, and Virgil does deserve to hear it, very much so,  _ especially  _ now.

“Love you too,” Virgil mutters, face reddening.

There is another brief interlude where they draw together with enough explosive energy to make the Large Hadron Collider weep tears of sheer envy, and for a minute or two they become quite lost in each other. So much so that they don’t realize that Virgil’s stopped cupping his gift in one hand and has started using that hand to grab onto Logan’s hair – not until they finally draw back from each other.

“Goddamnit, well,” says Virgil, looking around, “I lost the graviton.”

Logan can feel his face fall, and struggles not to look  _ too  _ disappointed. “We... probably should have put it somewhere safe before we commenced this romantic interaction, actually.”

Virgil is now down on his knees, combing through the carpet, even though it’s borderline impossible to find a lost  _ coin  _ in their shag rug, let alone a more-than-microscopic nanoparticle. “Fuck, fuck, shit – god, Logan, I’m so sorry – ”

They search for it for a full hour, but come up with a grand total of nothing, and eventually have to conclude that the graviton has rejoined the rest of its fellow hypothetical particles back in theoretical nonexistence.

Logan kind of wants to cry, but one look at Virgil, who appears even more miserable than he does, makes him reconsider his plans of punching a wall and sobbing in despair.

“Well,” he says, forcing himself to not catastrophize about it, and think on the bright side of things, “I’m sure scientists will rediscover it  _ eventually.  _ I think I can wait a couple of years for that.”

“But – ”

“It’s fine,” says Logan, and kisses Virgil firmly on the forehead. “It’s really,  _ really  _ fine. At the risk of sounding endlessly cheesy and cliched, you’re the only gift I need.”

Virgil looks slightly mollified by this. “I can’t wait to tell everyone you’re a secret romantic.”

“Nobody will ever believe you.”

“You  _ monster, _ ” Virgil breathes, and laughs, and pushes him onto the couch until they’re sprawled over each other and giggling madly. But even though it seems an awful lot like it’s all been forgotten and forgiven, there’s a distant, distinctly thoughtful look in Virgil’s eyes. And Logan already kind of knows what it means, by this point.

*

On Sunday –

“Before you show me whatever it is,” Logan interrupts, “I think we need to talk.”

Virgil pauses in the doorway, where he’s currently trying to hide an entire black hole behind his back, and says, “You know, I really hate it whenever people start conversations like that.”

“I know. I apologize. Let me clarify: I wish to ask you a casual, non-accusatory question relating to your recent string of gift-giving, which is in no way intended as an attack or slight against your personality, actions, or anything that you may or may not have done wrong.”

“That’s worse,” Virgil says, and glances back into the hallway outside their house. He appears to deliberate briefly before deciding that the black hole can probably handle itself for a minute or two. He closes the door, and takes a step towards the couch. “Okay, well – let’s just get this over with, I guess.”

It feels strikingly like a conference, or maybe a quarterly review, as they sit down knee-to-knee, and Logan does not care for that atmosphere at  _ all,  _ even though the next words he says don’t really do much to stray away from it.

“It’s very important to me that you know that you don’t need to...  _ buy  _ my affections,” he begins, already finding it very hard to figure out how to phrase this, despite the fact that he’s been thinking and overthinking it for the last few days. “Getting all of these – these frankly extravagant gifts for me... it’s impressive, and unbelievably kind, and unimaginably sweet, but it’s unnecessary.”

“It’s  _ not –  _ ” Virgil begins.

Logan isn’t finished. “I mentioned this several days prior, but it’s worth saying again. I will love you even if you don’t steal me the sun, or the moon, or the Earth’s core or the smallest possible unit of matter, or the largest living tree in the world, or  _ anything.  _ They’re extraordinary, yes, but so are you – and between spending time with you and spending time with one of the few surviving blue whales... Virgil, I’d pick you every time.”

“That’s – that’s not it.” Virgil looks deeply uncomfortable for a moment, so much so that Logan feels a sudden, aching stab of regret for even bringing it up in the first place. “I mean...  _ maybe  _ it’s  _ sort of  _ it? Partly? I don’t know, I didn’t actually think about it. I definitely wasn’t doing it on purpose, if I did. Honestly, I only keep getting more and more gifts because I keep fucking it up.” Virgil curls up his legs so they’re tucked sideways along the inner edge of the couch. “Like, if the sun had worked out – ”

“Virgil, I’m so sorry, but keeping the sun in our apartment was never going to work out, and I think you always knew that.”

“ – if the sun had worked out, I’d just have stopped there. But it didn’t, and...” He makes a helpless little gesture with his hands. “...I just really wanted to get you something! Something that actually  _ means  _ something. It’s not about trying to gift my way into getting you to stay. I know you’re – I know you actually like me. I know that, even though that – that’s  _ wild.  _ I feel like I need to... give something back, right? Pull my weight around here. Give you something that actually measures up to...” He waves a hand in Logan’s direction. “You.”

“I won’t stop you if you want to acquire more gifts for me,” Logan says quietly. “Because it’s not my right to tell you that you should stop doing that, not at all. But I do want to assure you that while it’s appreciated, it’s also unnecessary. I believe that you’re driving yourself into the ground, figuratively, over trying to acquire the perfect anniversary gift for me, and that worries me. I am happy with what I have and I need nothing more than the pleasure of your company and presence.”

Virgil audibly swallows.

“Okay?” says Logan.

“Okay,” says Virgil. “If you’re –  _ sure.  _ I’ll stop. I...” He laughs, a little self-deprecating chuckle. “...actually, this latest one did kind of take it out of me, you’re right. It’s been getting stressful and... yeah. I do. Need to stop, that is. Thanks.”

Logan nods at that. “...Yes. Now that we’ve got all that cleared up, this does in fact bring me to the black hole in the hallway outside. Which we need to deal with.”

Virgil looks faintly disappointed. “You noticed?”

“The sound of a black hole sucking its way through the majority of our neighbour’s residences and also the entirety of reality in the immediate vicinity tends to be rather distinctive.”

“Does it?”

“Well, maybe not, but the sound of hundreds of people screaming in unadulterated terror definitely is.”

“I have  _ got  _ to stop inadvertently causing the apocalypse,” Virgil mutters, glancing out the window at the rampant destruction and chaos currently taking place outside. “Everybody’s probably having the weirdest week of their lives.” He looks at Logan properly, and shrugs. “Um, since the metaphorical cat’s kind of out of the metaphorical bag – I got you a black hole for our anniversary? Surprise?”

Logan shrugs his coat on, and starts looking around for his shoes. “I can see that. Before we save the world from a fate worse than global warming – where did you manage to find it? As far as I’m aware, the closest on to Earth is somewhere nearing one thousand light years away.”

“...Found it to the south of the Rosette Nebula.”

“Oh!” Logan blinks. “There isn’t a known black hole in or anywhere around the Rosette Nebula-?”

“Well, there wasn’t until I came along.” Virgil nudges Logan’s shoes in his direction. “I, uh. Found it. And might have named it after you, also.”

“ _ Oh, _ ” says Logan again. He stops, halfway to picking up his shoes, and just stands there. “My goodness, ah – wow.  _ Wow.  _ Virgil, I don’t know what to say.”

“And I figured that, you know, while it’s pretty darn easy to lose a subatomic particle in the carpet, black holes are a  _ bit  _ more obvious, and maybe also practical? You’re always talking about responsible recycling, so...”

Logan closes his eyes. “For the record, I  _ really  _ want to keep it.”

“For the record, I also really want to keep it,” Virgil agrees. “I mean, can you imagine having a black hole in the living room all the time? It would be literally the _coolest thing._ ”

“But,” says Logan, “the continued survival of all life on Earth.” He picks up his shoes, and sits down to start putting them on. “I  _ do  _ quite enjoy the human race’s existence, seeing as we both are members of it.” He sees Virgil looking around for his jacket, and says, “No, I’ll – I’ll get it. You’ve done so much today; you deserve a break.”

Virgil looks faintly relieved, but then bites his lip. “Are you sure? Black holes are kinda tough to deal with – ”

“It’s the least I can do for the man who got me an entire black hole for our anniversary,” he says, and goes to take care of it.

Logan does fully intend to put the black hole back where Virgil had originally found it, or at the very least dispose of it in a suitably responsible manner. And he does; of course he does. It’s just...

It’s just that it very quickly occurs to him that, with a fully functioning black hole on hand and readily available to him, there is something else rather important that he might be able to achieve _first._

*

...On Monday, Logan steals My Chemical Romance’s unreleased hypothetical 2013 concept album ‘MCR5’, and presents it to Virgil with a flourish, right before faceplanting directly onto the couch.

“Is this – ”

“It is  _ exactly  _ what you think it is.”

There’s a moment of silence, and then Virgil lets out an immensely uncharacteristic high-pitched squeal that he quickly cuts off, before saying, “But, how – ”

Logan raises his head from the couch, and considers for a second. “There has always been a distant yet distinct chance that traversing through a rotating black hole could allow you to travel in time, and possibly space, but mostly time. It was far easier to conduct the necessary research to ascertain if this was true with a functional black hole on hand. I did the calculations, and concluded that the risk was minimal, at least when it comes to presenting you with a gift suitable of my admiration and respect for you. Happy belated anniversary.”

Virgil pauses for a second, and then says, “Excuse me.”

Logan waves a hand,  _ go on _ , and watches Virgil very carefully and reverently place the CD case on the side table, before exiting the room at a vigorous powerwalk, hands flailing wildly as he chants, “ _ YES YES YES YES _ ,” under his breath.

He lets his head thunk back onto the couch, a grin spreading across his face, and lies there, trying to regain the energy he’d used up jumping through a black hole twice within the space of less than an hour. He listens to Virgil pacing excitedly around the apartment no less than five times before returning to the living room and throwing himself down on the couch next to Logan’s head with obvious delight.

“I’m glad you like it,” Logan says offhandedly.

“You jumped through a black hole to get an unreleased alt-rock album that I mentioned to you  _ once, _ ” says Virgil, sounding faintly dumbstruck. “That’s – ”

“Now you know how I’ve felt for the last four days,” Logan tells him.

Virgil covers his face with both hands for a long second. “Huh. Wow, well, that’s... that’s a lot, huh?”

“Mhm.”

“Wow. Wow. Okay.” Virgil wiggles in place for a moment, apparently overwhelmed with energy. “I – I am going to blast this as loud as our sound system’s speakers can go; social anxiety be  _ damned. _ But first I am absolutely going to smooch your brains out.  _ Come here. _ ”

“I am very okay with both of those things,” says Logan, raising his head, and turns over to let Virgil scramble over him and pin him to the couch from above. “But next year,” he adds, just before Virgil kisses him, “let’s stick to flowers.”

“No promises, but for the record, I think black petunias are pretty neat,” Virgil replies, and the rest is electric warmth and pure affection, and they don’t do a lot of talking for a very, very long time. 


End file.
